


Something Borrowed

by Anonanonsir



Category: Enderal (Video Game)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-11
Updated: 2016-10-11
Packaged: 2018-08-21 23:31:59
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 735
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8264482
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anonanonsir/pseuds/Anonanonsir
Summary: Quick bit of Enderal fluff, set on the road during the Angel quest.





	

“I’m not so sure about this Dal’Galar of yours,” Eska said at length, breaking the preoccupied silence which had hung between them since Frostcliff. “Anyone who’d willingly live up here has got to be a little cracked.”

“What do you mean?” Calia’s tone was guarded; she had learned to expect derision and mockery as a matter of course.

“I mean it’s bloody freezing!” he answered hastily, hugging his arms tighter across his chest. His ears ached and he could no longer feel his toes, and to make matters worse there was snow everywhere, great drifts of it spilling across the road at every break in the trees.

“It isn’t _that_ cold,” she retorted, though her voice was patient rather than scornful.

“Calia. There is frozen white shit literally _falling from the sky!_ ” He could not quite contain his horror at this unfamiliar form of meteorological activity. As much as he’d hated Ostian he found himself longing for its perpetual sunshine and warmth. The Endralian cold cut straight to his bones.

“You mean _snow?_ ”

“Don’t say it like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like it’s perfectly natural!”

“It _is_ perfectly natural.” Her quick, determined step had carried her ahead of him, but he could have sworn he could hear the warmth of a smile in her voice. He grinned. Her no-nonsense solemnity reminded him of Sirius.

“Sure, if you’re a – a bear or – or a – ”

“Sa’Ira–” Calia stopped in her tracks and rounded on him, but whatever she had meant to say, the words died on her lips. He had flinched. From _her_. And all the light went out of his face as if someone had snuffed out a candle. She frowned in consternation. What in Malphas’ name had he thought she’d intended?

“You’ll bring every bandit in these hills down on top of us,” she told him with gentle exasperation. Gods, he really did look miserably cold. Shaking her head, she unslung her pack and pulled out a worn half cloak. “Here. Hold still.”

She reached up and pulled it over his head, ignoring the wide, green eyes which regarded her in startled, uncomprehending silence as she wrapped the ends around his neck and tied them securely.

“Better?” she asked, taking a step back. He looked a bit sheepish and a bit ridiculous, but warmer at least.

“I don’t know.” His gaze had dropped self-consciously to his boots, but there was a crooked half-smile tugging at his mouth. “I feel like an Ostian fishwife.”

Calia’s brows arched and she crossed her arms, holding out one hand in a silent challenge to give it back.

“No. No, it’s – it’s very nice!” he assured her, “I just… “ There was that smile again. “I suddenly have this overwhelming desire to brandish a cane and shriek at small children.”

She turned away, shaking her head, but not before he caught the quickly stifled tug of a smile at one corner of her own mouth.

“Then you really will attract every bandit for miles.”

“Ha! They’ve obviously never met an Ostian fishwife then or they’d run the other way. I’m not even kidding! Absolute, unholy _terrors_. You know this one time–”

“Sa’Ira.”

“Right. Bandits.” He made an effort to look serious. “Shutting up.”

They walked in silence for several minutes, and she’d all but forgotten the conversation in her concentration on their surroundings when she heard a sigh behind her and then a soft, creaky voice wailed, “When I was your age, we had to walk _barefoot_ through the snow. Uphill both w– ”

She hadn’t meant to laugh. It slipped out in surprise as she whirled round to find him hunched over his bow as if it were a walking stick and grinning like an idiot.

It was foolish and frivolous and she ought to have been angry. She _was_ angry, she told herself. The fate of humanity was at stake and he was distracting her with nonsense, when he knew better than anyone how desperately she needed to focus.

But it was the tentative smile which had only blazed into a grin when he’d seen her laugh. She hadn’t seen him smile, really smile, since he’d returned from Duneville with that mercenary. And now his whole face lit up, not in amusement over his own antics, but simply because for a single, unguarded instant she’d looked… happy?

She wasn’t sure what she ought to feel about that, but it wasn’t anger.


End file.
